Mateo Retegui is the second player in the history of Genoa and the Italian national team to have been called up for a European championship, excluding the qualifying phase. From 2008 to 2024, sixteen years later, it is still a rossoblù center forward who wears the Azzurra shirt at the continental event: Borriello reached the tournament which was played in Austria and Switzerland, which Italy concluded in the quarter-finals – the round of 16 had not yet been introduced – lost on penalties against Spain, fresh from a superlative year with Gasperini (19 in 35 games in Serie A). Coach Donadoni called him but didn’t use him even for a minute.
The fate of Retegui, originally from San Fernando, will be different because today the Italian national team, like the German one, is experiencing a crisis in the vocation of the no. 9 and, consequently, does not have the same quality as the attackers of the time (Del Piero, Toni, Di Natale, Quagliarella, Cassano and Borriello). Mateo, proud of his belonging to Genoa, will compete with Scamacca of Atalanta, launched into the Azzurri once again by Gasperini. Historical courses and recurrences. «What joy and what pride! It’s truly an incredible emotion! Forza Azzurri» writes Retegui on social media. Italy’s debut is scheduled for June 15th, at the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund, against Albania.
In its long history, Genoa has given five players to Italy for the World Cup (Genta and Perazzolo in 1938, Bocchetti and Criscito in 2010, Perin in 2014), two for the European Championship and only one for the newly formed Nations League (Sirigu in the 2020-2021 season). The development of the statistics starts from 13 January 1910, the date of the establishment of the national team, and from its first official match played against France, beaten 6-2 at the Arena Civica in Milan on 15 May of the same year.
